There were two major switch-overs in human history.........Hunter_Gatherer Stage to Agrarian Stage........And Agrarian Stage to Industrial Stage.

Hunter_Gatherer Society was least destructive.......Agrarian Society was hundreds / thousands times more destructive.......Industrial Society is millions of times more destructive.

The first switchover may very well be excused but not the second one.......When man switched over from Hunter_Gatherer Stage to Agrarian Stage he was not aware of the small size of our planet and the limited resources it contained........But when man switched over from Agrarian Stage to Industrial Stage it was sheer lunacy of people who started and promoted Industrial Activity all over the world despite having a fair knowledge of the small size of planet and the limited natural resources it contains.

Many resources were known to be running out and that humans were overpopulated, back when I did my initial research in 1967. We only had a small idea then of just how destructive humanity was. Global warming was just a theory, we had plenty of room for landfills, and the oceans seemed like nearly infinite trash dumps. "Silent Spring" was a warning to only a few. "The Population Bomb" had wildly inaccurate predictions because the author did not consult actual field and lab studies of mammal populations like I did, and merely completed the initial hyperbolic curve, then based everything on that. So science took a hit which has reverberated down through time.People did not go to two child families when that would have worked. They did not go to one child families when that would have worked. They mistrusted climate science with global warming predictions until now we only have 7 years left to stop burning fossil fuels and slash and burn agriculture 90%. Any industry would have to be powered by non-emissions sources. Most emissions producing industrial farming and distribution has to end, meaning food must be grown without emissions producing machinery and locally.They will not do it in time, so it goes beyond the politically correct worst case scenarios to a biosphere near destroying planetary reaction. A return, after the population die off, to hunter/gatherer and some agrarian society conditions, with a little high technology thrown in. Unfortunately, the positive feedback loops of increasing open water at the North Pole and self-release of tundra, followed and with by ocean warming and release of methane hydrates there, deeper and deeper. Higher and higher temperatures, far beyond the politically correct rose colored glasses with blinders worst case scenario, to a thermal maximum geological event with massive ELE, like but worse than 55 million years ago. Probably not the runaway greenhouse effect which would happen if all the fossil fuel had time to be burned before the population crash. That would preclude life ever again on Earth, eventually. But the preventable population crash and AETM will be bad enough, and our own species wiped out with most others.We could have industrialized to a certain extent without fossil fuels and their emissions, using solar power, batteries, and wind and tidal power. We had all this knowledge that could have lead to knowing sustainable limits and staying within them. Even before coal came into common usage and with it the cheap energy stimulus to population and industrialization with depletion beyond replenishment and pollution beyond absorption, some societies had become overpopulated with smaller body weight as a result from primitive industrialization. The use of charcoal and water wheels, the making of metal plows to over dig the soil and harnesses to domesticated animals to increase food production. China and India were overpopulated way before other parts of the world. Even Europe had become overpopulated by 1500 or so and people migrated to get relief. Still, the real stimulus to modern global problems was fossil fuels. First coal, then oil. You can not forget that technology and modern medicine played a big part, for they had increased rapidly, too. Without being able to wipe out predators, including diseases, the infant mortality would have remained high and people would have shorter lives. They did not then reduce family size rapidly enough. Greed made it so they used resources hundreds to many thousands of times their replenishment rates, and lust kept them over-breeding, while sloth allowed them to uncaringly pollute hundreds of times absorption rates.Having something that could take them across continents in just hours, and product after newer product to indulge their every whim, was intoxicating. People were drunk on too much food, too much water, too much cheap fuel, and industrial ruin was ignored. I suppose that is a kind of insanity that has universally gripped mankind to the point of massive denial, and inaction to change before it is too late. Now it is the insanity of ecocide, as the biosphere slowly crumbles with depletion and pollution. Even the long term cosmic/planetary processes that caused the ice ages for the past 5 million years or more are overcome by human pollution effects. The Sixth Great Extinction caused by humans and not an asteroid strike. A little slower, but still a blink of the eye, geologically.

"The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye.The story of love is hello and goodbye,Until we meet again." Jimi Hendrix, the day before his death.

Still, life will go on, the biosphere will heal. Until our Sun goes Nova.Then the Universe will go on, our solar system and life on Earth, just a blink in time.

Eternity is waiting, for you and me. I'm going to sing my song, and sing it all day long, a song that never ends. (Mike Pinder)

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

A Serial Killer with endless supply of ammunition goes on the rampage in the city.....The Police are informed.....They arrive on the scene.....They do not try to stop or capture the shooter.....They do not try to kill or incapacitate the shooter.....They allow him to continue shooting......They give him full liberty to move around all over the city.

The Police focus on the victims of shooting.....They take them to Hospitals and try to save them with the help of best Technology / Health Care.....The Government sets up thousands of Organizations to do research on how the Whites can be saved, How the Blacks can be saved, How the Asians can be saved, How the Young can be saved, How the Elderly can be saved.....The Government gives Billions of Dollars of Grant to "Think Tanks" and NGO's to find out how the victims can be saved.....People of the city engage in Billions of pages of Discussion, Debate and Argument to find a solution to the problem.

This is not the story of the Mass Shooter.....This is the story of Environmentalism in Industrial Society.

Environment is being destroyed by Industrial Activity........Environmental Activists and Organizations are trying to save environment without stopping Industrial Activity

One group is trying to save Forests......The second group is trying to save Rivers......The third group is trying to save Oceans......The fourth group is trying to make the Air clean......The fifth group is trying to save Tigers and Elephants......The sixth group is trying to save Whales and Dolphins.

Height of Insanity and Abnormality.

People who are trying to save environment in Industrial Society without stopping all Industrial Activity deserve the Nobel Prize for Lunacy.

Why don't people realize the futility and absurdity of their efforts......It is impossible to save animals, trees, air, water and land without stopping all Industrial Activity.

What is the point in saving a few Dogs, Cats, Whales, Tigers and Elephants when Industrial Society is killing billions of animals in Industrial Slaughter Houses and billions of Wild Animals in Forests by destroying Forests with Industrial Activities like Mining Industry, Logging Industry, Construction Industry, Energy Generation Industry, Manufacturing Industry, millions of kilometers of Rail and Road Networks and ever expanding Towns and Cities.......Industrial Society is also killing billions of fish in the oceans with Industrial Fishing and through discharge of billions of tonnes of Industrial Waste into oceans which has made them poisonous, acidic, warmer and created oxygen-deprived dead zones in the oceans.

It is impossible to save Air, water and Land without stopping all Industrial Activity because Industrial Activity is killing them with trillions of tonnes of Metal waste, Plastic waste, Gaseous waste, Chemical waste, eWaste and Nuclear Waste.......Industrial Activity produces trillions of tonnes of Solid, Liquid and Gaseous Waste and there are only three places on earth where all this waste can go....Air, water and Soil.....There is no fourth place on earth where this waste can go...... It is impossible for Rivers, Oceans, Atmosphere and Soil to be clean in Industrial Society.

This planet can only sustain a Hunter_Gatherer Society or an Agrarian Society......Not an Industrial Society.

All Environmentalism is Pseudo-Environmentalism in Industrial Society.......It is impossible to save environment in an Industrial Society.

People who pretend they are saving environment in Industrial Society are even more insane, abnormal and criminal than people who are destroying the environment.

It is impossible to save environment in Industrial Society because Industrialization itself is the cause of environmental destruction.........In a non-industrial society environmentalism was not even needed.......In the absence of Industrial Activity environment got saved automatically because only limited destruction of environment was possible without Industrial Machines.

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Environment has been destroyed by Industrial Activity........Trying to save environment without stopping Industrial Activity is like ..

Trying to save a victim of shooting by shooting him even more.

Trying to save a victim of stabbing by stabbing him even more.

Trying to save a victim of poisoning by giving him even more poison.

Height of Insanity, Abnormality and Criminality.......You cannot save environment by destroying more of it.

Industrial Society has been destroying Extra environment for 250 years........It has been destroying environment for "thousands of consumer goods and services" in addition to food, clothing and shelter.

You cannot save a person after killing him.......You cannot save environment after it has been killed by Industrial Activity.

The entire Industrial Society deserves the Nobel Prize for Lunacy for pretending that environment is getting saved when the reality is that Industrial Society has been destroying extra environment after industrialization and has destroyed so much extra environment in 250 years that there is hardly any environment left to save.

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What is the Result of 50 years of Environmentalism/ Pseudo Environmentalism in Industrial Society???

Industrial Society has been killing millions of times more Animals, Trees, Air, Water and Land than Pre-Industrial Society every day for several decades.

Industrial Society has been killing millions of acres of Forests with Industrial Activity every day for several decades.

Industrial Society has been killing Billions of Animals in Industrial Slaughter Houses every day for several decades.

Industrial Society has been killing millions of Wild Animals by destroying the Forests where they live with Industrial Activity every day for several decades.

Industrial Society has been killing Air, Water and Soil with billions of tonnes of Solid, Liquid and Gaseous Industrial Waste every day for several decades.....Industrial Society has been killing Rivers, Oceans, Air/ Atmosphere and Soil/ Land with Billions of Tonnes of Metal Waste, Plastic waste, Gaseous waste, Chemical Waste, eWaste and Nuclear Waste every day for several decades.

Industrial Society has been killing Millions of Acres of Fertile Soil with Cement, Concrete and Asphalt every day for several decades.

All this Killing / Destruction was absent in Pre-Industrial Society without any Environmentalism.

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All Environmentalism in Industrial Society is Pseudo Environmentalism.

No environment is getting saved in Industrial Society.....Not an iota of environment is getting saved.

How can environment ever be saved in Industrial Society when Industrial Activity itself is the cause of environmental destruction....Environment can only be saved in a Non-Industrial Society.

Industrial Society has created hundreds of unnecessary / futile occupations to solve the problems created by Industrialization.....Environmental Activism is one of them.....If thousands of organizations and millions of activists are trying to save environment in Industrial Society it does not mean that environment is getting saved…..There have been three human societies on earth .....Hunter_Gatherer, Agrarian and Industrial.....In Hunter_Gatherer Society there was no Urban Population, entire population was engaged in searching for food.....In Agrarian Society less than 2% of population was Urban, Most of the population was engaged in producing food.....In Industrial Society 50% of world population is producing food for entire population , the remaining 50% population is Urban which has created hundreds of unnecessary occupations to keep itself occupied..... People would go crazy without work…. Environmentalism / Environmental Activism is one such profession [occupation]......[Other unnecessary and destructive professions in Industrial Society include Manufacturing and Marketing of thousands of consumer goods and services, Jobs in Tourism Industry, Entertainment Industry, Sports Industry, Military Industrial Complex and several other jobs]....No Environmentalism was needed in Hunter_Gatherer and Agrarian Societies because in the absence of Industrial Activity only limited destruction of environment was possible, so environment got saved automatically.

If billions of pages of environmental discussion is taking place in Industrial Society it does not mean that environment is getting saved......Endless Discussion, Debate and Argument is a Disease and Insanity of Industrial Society that invented the Printing Press, Radio, Television and Internet.....Animal Species and Hunter_Gatherer Society did not save environment through discussion.....They didn't even have a language for discussion…..Billions of pages of Discussion, Debate and Argument is another harmful waste of Industrial Society just like Billions of Tonnes of Metal Waste, Plastic Waste, Chemical waste, Gaseous Waste, eWaste and Nuclear Waste.

All Environmentalism in Industrial Society is Pseudo Environmentalism.

No environment is getting saved in Industrial Society.....Not an iota of environment is getting saved.

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If Urban Society stops all its supplies to Villages......Electricity, Oil, Machinery and Equipment, Villagers will survive forever.

If Villages stop all their supplies to Cities......Food Grains and Vegetables, Urban Population will die within a month.

[ Villagers need Electricity, Oil, Machinery and Equipment to produce food for the Urban Population , They would not need these things to produce food for themselves]

Urban Population is engaged in Unnecessary Work, Meaningless Work, Futile Work and Destructive Work which has led to destruction of most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems on earth.

For millions of years "Searching For Food" / "Producing Food" were the primary occupations of almost the entire human population in Hunter_Gatherer and Agrarian Society.

There is Zero chance of saving the little environment that is left without fixing the problem of "Urban Population".

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Animal Species had Zero Percent Urban Population.......Hunter_Gatherer Society had Zero Percent Urban Population.......Agrarian Society had less than Two Percent Urban Population.......All these societies sustained for millions of years collectively.

The current Industrial Society which has 50% Urban Population worldwide has destroyed most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems in just 250 years after Industrial Revolution.......Industrial Activity has been promoted by Urban Population......Industrial Activity has been promoted by people who do not produce food.

This planet can only sustain food producing societies where almost the entire population is engaged in food production......It cannot sustain an Industrial Society where 50% of world population is growing food for entire population and the remaining 50% living in cities is promoting Industrial Activity.

Animals saved environment for millions of years because they destroyed it only for food.....Hunter_Gatherer Society saved environment because it destroyed environment only for food.....Agrarian Society saved environment because it destroyed environment only for food, clothing and shelter.

Industrial Society has destroyed most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems because it destroyed environment for "Thousands of consumer goods and services" in addition to food, clothing and shelter.

In the Animal Kingdom, Hunter_Gatherer Society and Agrarian Society almost the entire population was engaged in "Searching for Food" / "Growing Food".

Food, clothing and shelter......These are the maximum number of things this planet can provide to humans......The only way to save the remaining environment is by reorganizing the entire population so that food production remains the only primary activity just like it was for millions of years before Industrialization.

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This planet cannot sustain an Industrial / Urban Society......The problem is not Capitalism, The problem is Industrialization / Urbanization.......The solution is not Communism or Socialism, The solution is Non-Industrial / Non-Urban Society.

Capitalism, Communism or Socialism does not matter at all........What matters is percentage of Urban Population......A Socialist Industrial Society with 80% Urban Population will be as Harmful, Destructive and Evil as a Capitalist Industrial Society with 80% Urban Population...... A Communist Industrial Society with 80% Urban Population will be as Harmful, Destructive and Evil as a Capitalist Industrial Society with 80% Urban Population.

Urban Population is responsible for consumerism.......Urban Population does not produce Food.....It produces thousands of Consumer Goods and Services.

Consumerism is directly proportional to Percentage of Urban Population.

Saving environment in Industrial Society is an impossibility......No Industrial Society can save environment.......Communist or Socialist Industrial Societies cannot be less destructive than Capitalist Industrial Societies.

There cannot be any sustainable Industrial Society........The fault does not lie in Capitalism.....The fault lies in Industrialization.....All Industrial Societies are the same.....All Industrial Societies are equally harmful, destructive and evil.

Destruction of environment is guaranteed in Industrial Society......The debate over Capitalism, Communism and Socialism in the context of Environmental Crisis is meaningless and absurd.

Today 50% of world population is Urban, living in cities...... 50% of world population is producing food for entire population and the remaining 50% population living in Cities is primarily engaged in production and marketing of thousands of consumer goods and services........Urban population is not producing food, it is producing consumer goods and services.......Even if the entire world is made Communist or Socialist it is not going to bring about any change in consumerism because the percentage of Urban Population will remain the same and it will continue producing and marketing thousands of consumer goods and services.

In America 90 - 95% of population is Urban......That is why consumerism is so rampant in the US......Even if America is made Communist or Socialist it is not going to reduce consumerism because the percentage of Urban Population would still remain the same.

In Europe 80 - 90% of population is Urban.

In China and India consumerism has risen exponentially with the increase in percentage of Urban Population.

Capitalism, Communism or Socialism does not matter.......What matters is Industrialization and Urbanization which results in Consumerism.

This planet cannot sustain Industrial Urban Population.......This planet cannot sustain a society that does not produce its own food.

This planet can sustain a Hunter_Gatherer Society or an Agrarian Society where almost the entire population is engaged in "searching for food" / producing food......This planet cannot sustain an Industrial Society where 50% of population is producing food for entire population and the remaining 50% population is producing thousands of consumer goods and services.

I tend to agree with you Sushy. After the population crash, urban areas will be mostly dead, and society will be mainly medieval non-industrial. There may be a few oil wells working and coal mines and coal fired small industry, plus PV powered small industry and the old water wheels for mills again. Some places will be more stone age while others remain high tech. It is getting too late to stop the fossil fuel, and slash and burn emissions, from passing the tipping point of unstoppable methane turnover. Humanity has 7 years left to shut it down and has too much inertia to change that quick.The Earth could have supported X1 number of people at a hunter/gatherer/agrarian status, and X2 amount with limited industry. The amount was finite, but people passed X2 in 1804 and X1 around 1924. Since then, resource depletion has been 100 times replenishment or more (500K times for fossil fuels), and pollution has been up to, or more, than 1,000 times the natural systems' absorption ability. The extinction rate began to rise above 'normal background' 11K years ago with the invention of the Folsom Point large spear heads, inventions to throw small spears farther and faster, and widespread use of the bow and arrow. These hunter gatherers also ran entire herds of buffalo over cliffs when they could only use a few before they rotted. It didn't get worse because their numbers were held in check by diseases, wars with other tribes, and starvation in bad years.The first agrarians learned the hard way about soil depletion(and food storage to last through bad years), and some learned to fallow and compost to rebuild soils. The thing about both is that they did not use fossil fuels or water, although they could have at their respective regeneration rates(i.e. slowly).Maximum sustainable long term population was lower than the short term sustainable even then. Besides wars, diseases, and starvation episodes, they still had some predators that got through, and some tribes did have herbal contraceptives.The invention of the water wheel allowed over sustainable long term populations in Asia, then Europe. Sailing ships could forage further for food, but much would rot. The steamship changed that, and brought food upriver, too.The rise toward a population crash started then. Technology helped push it along (including medical technology)and the technology to drill fossil oil and water stimulated the population more while fossil fuel pollution increased. In reality, the number of humans was over sustainable long term without technology or industry hundreds of years before X2(one billion). The hunter gatherer/agrarian society, to be sustainable, had to forgo the technology learned that caused extinctions of major food animals and depletion of resources. The wisdom that spawned invention should have always remained tempered by knowledge of nature and long term thinking of consequences possible and unforeseen. People are/were not wise enough.

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

A Serial Killer with endless supply of ammunition goes on the rampage in the city.....The Police are informed.....They arrive on the scene.....They do not try to stop or capture the shooter.....They do not try to kill or incapacitate the shooter.....They allow him to continue shooting......They give him full liberty to move around all over the city.

The Police focus on the victims of shooting.....They take them to Hospitals and try to save them with the help of best Technology / Health Care.....The Government sets up thousands of Organizations to do research on how the Whites can be saved, How the Blacks can be saved, How the Asians can be saved, How the Young can be saved, How the Elderly can be saved.....The Government gives Billions of Dollars of Grant to "Think Tanks" and NGO's to find out how the victims can be saved.....People of the city engage in Billions of pages of Discussion, Debate and Argument to find a solution to the problem.

This is not the story of the Mass Shooter.....This is the story of Environmentalism in Industrial Society.

Environment is being destroyed by Industrial Activity........Environmental Activists and Organizations are trying to save environment without stopping Industrial Activity

I didn't notice your thread earlier, as I am fairly new to this board, but now that it's been revived I notice that much of what you've written (the OP is way too long!) is in line with the thinking of a small handful of technology critics, who are especially critics of techno-optimists - who usually describe themselves as skeptics, realists and materialists, yet share a faith-based assumption that future technological innovations will provide cheap energy after oil runs out and fix messes we have created with the environment. I don't want to get sidetracked too far, but yet another example is at the bottom of a Guardian online article on the predicted collapse of Arctic sea ice in 2016, where expert - Prof. Peter Wadhams declares: "and that we must not only urgently reduce CO2 emissions but must urgently examine other ways of slowing global warming, such as the various geoengineering ideas that have been put forward."

These include reflecting the sun's rays back into space, making clouds whiter and seeding the ocean with minerals to absorb more CO2."http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice?newsfeed=trueAnd away we go down that slippery slope to extinction, after the unforeseen consequences of geoengineering require the invention and installation of counter-technologies to fix the damages done by the first techno-fix!

The problem with trying to take on tech groupies is that they are everywhere, in all levels of society, and every political and religious grouping on the planet. Even right wing fundamentalists in the U.S. who express open hostility to science and want the teaching of evolution out of the schools are still advocates of the technologies provided by science! And of course, techno-optimism has all the financial backing since new technologies in production, energy, environment, medicine etc. earn profits just from providing novelty, and when the real benefits don't materialize, they are scrapped for the creation of a new innovative technofix. So it's no surprise that most of the environmental fixes advocated are creating new technologies that supposedly fix the damage done by previous technological solutions.

Right now, I am still reading "TECHNO-FIX" http://techno-fix.org/index.htm by Michael and Joyce Husemmann, which makes a plausible case that our present troubles began right at the start of The Age of Enlightenment in Europe three centuries ago. Before the actual start of the Industrial Revolution, Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon spawned the modern materialist assumptions that man was separate and apart from nature, and could control nature. Most of the historical and philosophical writings on this subject teach us that these are assumptions that go back to the start of Judeo-Christian religions and Ancient Greek philosophy, but the truth is that until the Enlightenment, western cultures did not have the automatic assumption that new was better, or that nature was just a collection of resources left for us by God to exploit in any manner that we chose. Even the founders of modern capitalist economic theory - John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith, did not advocate continuous, exponential economic growth. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith expected that economic growth would have to plateau and level off, or face running out of available land and resources.

The Industrial Revolution itself was not greeted by all with open arms, as history books note with the rise of the Luddite Rebellions -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite. Before the creation of textile factories in England, weavers, sewers and other skilled and semi-skilled artisans had a great deal of control over where and how long they worked. But once the factories were built, unskilled workers working 12 hour days lost all of their freedoms when they were put to work at machines which dictated the pace of work. Today, historians present the Luddites as an historical anachronism to be mocked for standing in the way of "progress." One other extremely biased Wikipedia article on the Luddites makes the claim that all of the Luddites fears were unfounded as wealth increased through the 19th century. Of course no accounting is made for how that wealth was distributed and whether the people forced into factory work were happier. But the rise of communist movements in Europe could be taken as an indicator that many felt their lives were made worse in the changeover from agrarian to industrial society.

How could we function without an industrial society? We need to produce, it's a human desire. But in order to really do anything about it, we probably all need to become Amish. Well, that doesn't sound too good, so we could just curb our spending appetite.

Right now, I am still reading "TECHNO-FIX" http://techno-fix.org/index.htm by Michael and Joyce Husemmann, which makes a plausible case that our present troubles began right at the start of The Age of Enlightenment in Europe three centuries ago. Before the actual start of the Industrial Revolution, Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon spawned the modern materialist assumptions that man was separate and apart from nature, and could control nature. Most of the historical and philosophical writings on this subject teach us that these are assumptions that go back to the start of Judeo-Christian religions and Ancient Greek philosophy, but the truth is that until the Enlightenment, western cultures did not have the automatic assumption that new was better, or that nature was just a collection of resources left for us by God to exploit in any manner that we chose. Even the founders of modern capitalist economic theory - John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith, did not advocate continuous, exponential economic growth. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith expected that economic growth would have to plateau and level off, or face running out of available land and resources.

right to left,

You are right about this.

Today the entire world is collectively involved in destruction of environment but the biggest role in this process of destruction was played by Western Civilization.

The West was the first to start Industrial Revolution and travel on the destructive path of Industrialization and Consumerism.......It then forced western lifestyle on its colonies in Asia, Africa and America whose cultures it had already destroyed during the era of Colonization.

The West took the entire world on the wrong path of Industrialization, Consumerism, Growth Rate, Economy Rate and GDP that has led to destruction of most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems.

The West did not have the foresight to know that a lifestyle based on loot, plunder and exploitation of natural resources would destroy the very things that created and sustained all life on earth for millions of years and ultimately lead to total destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The West started Industrial Revolution and promoted Materialism because it focused on "Reason"......The East had focused on "Subjective Experience" for thousands of years which led to "Spiritual Development".

The West spent its time and energy on "reason" which led to Science, Technology and Industrialization / Material Development....The West has got very little knowledge of Spiritual Development.....Very little concept of peaceful states of mind / peaceful subjective experience.

The Aborigines of Australia would not have started the Industrial Revolution.

Red Indians / Native Americans would not have started the Industrial Revolution.

The Africans are very unlikely to have started the Industrial Revolution.

These cultures were quite happy and content with their Rituals and Spiritual Practices.

In India people had made efforts for Spiritual Development for thousands of years.....They developed methods and techniques for making the mind quiet, tranquil and peaceful......The knowledge of subjective experience led to the fields of yoga, meditation and pranayam [breath control].......Material Development has destroyed the planet, If any kind of development was needed it was Spiritual Development.

Human work should fulfill the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter.....It should not turn into overwork or destructive work.....If extra time is available to people and society after basic needs have been fulfilled it should be used for Spiritual Practices, Art and Culture.

It is easy to see it started in India and China. Agrarian societies with technology of water wheels and irrigation led to over long term sustainable population. Then Southern Mexico/Central America. Only well after did it spread to "the west" or Europe. Then other places, until now the inhabitable and uninhabitable regions of the planet are way over sustainable long term for each region.It is overcrowded society that destroys the mind and environment. Sure, with time, the negative ecological trait of crowd tolerance sets in, but the crowds grow further with more demands on the soil water on the surface and underneath, the oceans, and the non-renewable and renewable resources. The overcrowding leads to anxiety disorders, crime and anti-social disorders, depressive illnesses and increased hostility.Sushy, you are suffering from this, and making excuses for India and its long term gross overpopulation. Both India and China have large areas of no carbon left in the soils, and dwindling aquifers with horribly polluted rivers. India with a too high to survive TFR of 2.6, and China still going up with momentum. Both areas increasing consumption and pollution.Coal was used in China before Europe. China invented gunpowder which increased the extinction rate and reduced predators even more than bows and arrows and large spears. Both places have a long history of poverty, starvation episodes, and disease outbreaks from crowding. China also had wars which depopulated, while India had developed over-tolerance and over-compassion ways of life, which spread, reducing hostility and anxiety, for a while. Now, even the crowd tolerant are going nuts with the "industrial society", the fast paced techno-society, and mainly the even more crowded conditions with heavy pollution.You philosophize that a hunter gatherer society could not overpopulate the planet, when even then, especially with the technology of the bow and arrow and large spears, there is a limit. In that phase, it was at the long term sustainable limit probably 3000 years ago. Technology without thought to future consequences, or just widespread ignorance, was a force toward going over limits of natural replenishment and regeneration/recharge. This led to first area industrialization, then spread globally, using resources ever faster with its and technology's increases. If people would have first recognized limits and natural renewal rates, and had a philosophy of thinking ahead a number of generations on consequences, then they would have stayed close to long term sustainable and not had the problems of over-crowding. Technology would have been wisely used and industrialization kept to a small amount. Instead, base instincts of greed, lust, and selfishness ruled with short sightedness and ignorance of natural systems. Crowd tolerance was allowed to develop, making it worse. Human failings have led to this out of control overpopulation to crash and pollution to ecocide.

Hey, sushi, you should get together with arpad fekete (AF2)

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

It is easy to see it started in India and China. Agrarian societies with technology of water wheels and irrigation led to over long term sustainable population. Then Southern Mexico/Central America. Only well after did it spread to "the west" or Europe. Then other places, until now the inhabitable and uninhabitable regions of the planet are way over sustainable long term for each region.It is overcrowded society that destroys the mind and environment.

Before we continue, what was different about the way Europe addressed its overpopulation problem in the 18th century - when many nations like England were actually running out of wood to burn as charcoal?1. Encouraging emigration. The colonies established by European powers were not just set up as a competitive power play with rivals, and for sources of raw materials for their industries as our high school history books informed us -- they were also established to outsource surplus lower classes of people (even prisoners in Australia's case), that the ruling classes feared would be a source of instability at home.

In the Americas, this process was largely enabled because the arriving Europeans were disease vectors, thanks to all of the diseases they carried that originated from their livestock. Diseases like small pox spread faster than the European encroachment, thanks in large part to the fact that Aboriginals did not keep animals and had no similar communicable diseases that jumped species to humans; so they had no systems of quarantine in their cultural traditions to prevent the spread of disease through a community. In fact, many tribes had the opposite inclination - to try to flee from disease and so quickly spread the new diseases through neighbouring tribes. As a result, the Indian Wars that were fought, were mostly against sick, weakened and depopulated tribes. And in many areas like the Pacific Northwest, entire regions were depopulated before the first European settlers arrived. No small wonder that the new Americans, presented with so much open land with abundant resources, created Manifest Destiny, and an optimistic reverence for progress and exploitation of nature, which they thought would never end....and still don't, even in the face of scarcities of resources and environmental degradation.

2. New technology and innovation. Referring back to England - what England did to fend off the predictions of Malthus besides exporting lower classes, was to develop new technologies to increase the amount of energy available to exploit the environment. So, in England it was the transition from wood and charcoal to coal as the primary fuel source, that enabled England to support a population that could continue growing and not face the famine and disease that they would have experienced without adopting new technology.

And here we can see the difference in how India and China responded to overcrowding. India and China also had the scientific and technical knowledge necessary to create the same kind of economies that Europe started in the Industrial Revolution, yet they did not, for whatever reasons you want to insert here, they didn't make the jump to overexploitation of what nature provides until all of those Enlightenment attitudes were enforced on them through colonialism. The technologies of water wheels and irrigating rice fields from rivers overflowing their banks in the monsoon season, were still technologies that did not allow extracting more from the natural economy than it was able to provide. The only reason why population is an issue today, is because the large populations in China and India, having adopted capitalism and the oil economy, and now that they are following the American model to prosperity, they are rapidly closing the gap in the size of their carbon footprints -- and this is the real problem! From whatever historical records are available, the populations in India and China did not exceed their carrying capacities and plateaued. They did not experience the Easter Island-type crashes, nor start expanding until oil-based agriculture and other technologies allowed them to do so.

Today the entire world is collectively involved in destruction of environment but the biggest role in this process of destruction was played by Western Civilization.

The West was the first to start Industrial Revolution and travel on the destructive path of Industrialization and Consumerism.......It then forced western lifestyle on its colonies in Asia, Africa and America whose cultures it had already destroyed during the era of Colonization.

The West took the entire world on the wrong path of Industrialization, Consumerism, Growth Rate, Economy Rate and GDP that has led to destruction of most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems.

The West did not have the foresight to know that a lifestyle based on loot, plunder and exploitation of natural resources would destroy the very things that created and sustained all life on earth for millions of years and ultimately lead to total destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The West started Industrial Revolution and promoted Materialism because it focused on "Reason"......The East had focused on "Subjective Experience" for thousands of years which led to "Spiritual Development".

The West spent its time and energy on "reason" which led to Science, Technology and Industrialization / Material Development....The West has got very little knowledge of Spiritual Development.....Very little concept of peaceful states of mind / peaceful subjective experience.

The Aborigines of Australia would not have started the Industrial Revolution.

Red Indians / Native Americans would not have started the Industrial Revolution.

The Africans are very unlikely to have started the Industrial Revolution.

These cultures were quite happy and content with their Rituals and Spiritual Practices.

In India people had made efforts for Spiritual Development for thousands of years.....They developed methods and techniques for making the mind quiet, tranquil and peaceful......The knowledge of subjective experience led to the fields of yoga, meditation and pranayam [breath control].......Material Development has destroyed the planet, If any kind of development was needed it was Spiritual Development.

Human work should fulfill the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter.....It should not turn into overwork or destructive work.....If extra time is available to people and society after basic needs have been fulfilled it should be used for Spiritual Practices, Art and Culture.

All very true. In Canada and the United States, there was a brief golden era after WWII, when the middle class was growing in size and per capita wealth, and income inequality was in decline. This was by coincidence, the era of the Cold War, when our aristocrats were no doubt living in fear that large portions of the working classes would be influenced by communism. So they were determined to try to prove that "a rising tide raises all boats" as they like to put it. But this fairy tale came to an end somewhere during the time when they determined that the Soviet Union was in economic collapse, and they could resume being the ruthless capitalists they always wanted to be, and start eliminating all of the taxes and regulations that infringed on their capacities to maximize and hoard wealth.

The problem with today's political debate...besides the obvious fact that our media is more concentrated in ownership and less free, is that the only debate allowed is between conservatives (for whom Mitt Romney is the poster boy of the attitude of superiority and entitlement) and liberals - who never criticize the capitalist system itself, but just want to make a few adjustments to make it more humane - like raising the upper income tax rates. They think they can relive the glory days of post-war America, and are totally oblivious to the fact that that ship has come and gone and will never return! Number one reason being the American Empire and the American way of life were built on cheap and abundant supplies of high quality oil. They don't have the necessary foundation for going back to that economic growth and yet liberal talking heads on radio and TV news programs keep pushing the meme that all that's necessary is a larger government stimulus program to get things going again.

So, speaking as a Canadian who has family in the U.S., and has lived and worked in the U.S. until about 20 years ago, I believe that the greatest wild card to throw on our accumulating environmental problems in the world, is the fact that the largest global empire that the world has ever experienced, is already in the process of collapse, and is becoming increasingly ruthless in its use of its military and commercial power to extract wealth from the rest of the world. At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was great foreboding about what would happen to all those nukes? Today, there is a similar fear about what will happen to the nukes in Pakistan if its government collapses. But, the debt-financed U.S. military and economic empire is also closing in on insolvency, and it has many times more nuclear warheads than the rest of the world. I am starting to wonder what the Military-Industrial Complex will do and threaten to do to try to keep its empire alive.

I notice I've veered off topic here, but I didn't want to just repeat over what I had written in the previous post, and looking over some of today's news stories I wanted to take a look at the present and what the world might be facing in the near future.

The West started Industrial Revolution and promoted Materialism because it focused on "Reason"......The East had focused on "Subjective Experience" for thousands of years which led to "Spiritual Development".

The West spent its time and energy on "reason" which led to Science, Technology and Industrialization / Material Development....The West has got very little knowledge of Spiritual Development.....Very little concept of peaceful states of mind / peaceful subjective experience.

Here's something I was thinking through but forgot about -- yes, starting with Plato and Aristotle, there was an elevation of the focus on using reasoning abilities to solve problems. The classic Ancient Greek philosophers were so entranced by their reasoning, or maybe rationalization abilities, that they believed they did not even need to develop a scientific process of discovery. They thought that just through sheer exercise of their great reasoning abilities, they could gain all necessary knowledge available, and make the wisest of decisions regarding all issues. That's why Plato's Republic has a panel of philosophers, rather than kings or a democratic vote to make government decisions. Nowadays, thanks to developmental psychologists like Daniel Kahneman, Bruce M. Hood, and Deborah Kelemen, we are learning about the pitfalls and limitations of our reasoning abilities, and just how biased and irrational the reasoning process can turn out to be with those who are so overconfident in their abilities to understand and solve issues. Certainly in the realm of today's greatest promoters of The Enlightenment - atheist/humanist writers like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins - from the many books and articles I have read from these and a few other prominent humanists, I haven't found any who follow what I would consider a rational understanding of the role and limitations of the use of technology to solve problems. On that subject, they have an unbounded faith that future technological developments will solve all of the world's energy and environmental concerns....providing there is enough time.

There isn't enough time to prevent #1) the population crash, and #2) passing the tipping points of open water ocean self warming and tundra methane self release (both positive feedback loops to AGW). No techno fixes that would or could be implemented in the little time left. About a third of the environment destroying AGW is from slash and burn low tech non-industrial agriculture, the other two thirds is from fossil fuel burning.The overcrowding started around 1000AD in India, China and southern Mexico/Central America, then die off from unmaintained canals in Maya country (like even earlier in Mesopotamia), and die off from diseases in China and India, and warfare in China. In those two places the recoveries were rapid. All before colonization or the "Enlightenment".

It is easy to see it started in India and China. Agrarian societies with technology of water wheels and irrigation led to over long term sustainable population. Then Southern Mexico/Central America. Only well after did it spread to "the west" or Europe. Then other places, until now the inhabitable and uninhabitable regions of the planet are way over sustainable long term for each region.It is overcrowded society that destroys the mind and environment. Sure, with time, the negative ecological trait of crowd tolerance sets in, but the crowds grow further with more demands on the soil water on the surface and underneath, the oceans, and the non-renewable and renewable resources(and the madness returns). The overcrowding leads to anxiety disorders, crime and anti-social disorders, depressive illnesses and increased hostility.The psychologists are often ignorant of the human overcrowding syndrome, which is described in the last sentence above. Perhaps, in the case of some, it is the industrialization that is the last straw for their sanity. With others, the high paced urban grid locked world. The real base cause is overpopulation in a relatively confined area, or overcrowding. The Mayans went mad and died off, and weren't industrialized. The earlier overcrowded China and India(both with limited industrialization) had their conflicts and problems of overcrowding and developed religio-cultural temporary fixes, and genetically developed crowd tolerance, which is being overcome. Other places, people got used to the crowd, but as the crowd doubled, lost that tolerance, too. People are fleeing monstropolises as the world gains 203K people per day. Then the places they flee to get over crowded, too, eventually. More and more anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs make it into waterways, while hostility, barely contained, rankles more people.

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein